Dear Diary : 33 years and counting Posted by horatio on Saturday, February 06, 2010 (21:21:16) (11 reads)
~33 for Bashō~
33 years and counting
life continues to be a whirlwind with no landing site
but i find myself less worried about that
and more engaged with the spinning whirl
of the here and now
and learning how to enjoy tasting the moment
for the moment, rather than as a mere appetizer
for the eternal moment of future becoming
being embodied in one's body
and comfortable in one's skin
seemingly mundane things
yet amazingly not at all
i'm a nerd underneath, she said
or was it inside, i can't remember
either way we embraced our inner glow
our radiating circuits, as she put it
even without having to speak in code
C++ = PhP / MySql
{if/then} becomes probability
instead of functionality
utility yields to aesthetics
aesthetics melts before beauty
beauty mirrors nature
in watery reflecting pools
and slowly unfolding maidenhair ferns
entangled with cinnamon wooly bears
and the smell of cedar and pine needles
what is this feeling of being
this eternal return to a desire to understand
something hidden yet completely revealed
visible yet invisible, transparently opaque
glimmering like a stained-glass mirage
before the all seeing minds-eye
familiarity and cognitive dissonance
a house of nacre mirrors and cobalt prisms
perfectly faceted and stitched together
into polygonal wings of a flying serpent
that speaks only in haiku
Dear Diary : phantasmagoriaporiasma Posted by horatio on Monday, February 01, 2010 (03:24:45) (17 reads)
floating somewhere between a lost past and an unknown future
the little child rocks back and forth
cradling a small crystal terrapin between his legs
running his fingers over the carapace crevices
tracing a destiny unfurling
like a virgin frond of the maidenhair
black and green, mirroring his heart
overhead a dragon glides by
lost in the aerial heights and thinning oxygen
snorting flames and dissolving clouds of myst
hermes trismegistus with leathery skin
and cinnamon slit eyes glowing and pulsing
tigers eye, carnelian, hematite, lapis, emerald, amber
tears of dragonsblood resin drip off
crystal mana sap from heaven
floating on the windscent of pine and conifer
is this the life i dreamt when i awoke in the limestone cave
or when i burrowed under the ancient sycamore grove
or in my nest of rhododendron tentacles and lycanthropic lichens
gleaming, panting, howling
feral dreaming in stereoscopic vision
of transgenetic bunnies glowing green from bioluminescent bacteria
and foxfire brunches after the chickweed buffet ran out
when the turtle stepped out of his shell he died
but for a moment he had exquisite dreams of freedom
stretching out clawed appendages to the heavens
to trace the crest of the moon overhead
as the fox sang a song of mushroom dreams and rotten logs
sweeter than the first pregnant violet full of spring dew drops
but it tastes salty and bitter, said the turtle
that is because you are dying, replied the fox
as he pulled the trillium shroud closer
sweetness cannot exist in this world, whispered the fox
without the bitterness and the chaos
i don't understand, choked the turtle, his eyes blurring
charcoal streaks across his beak
your song is so beautiful it kills me
it is not my song, replied the fox
the song is rather your heart
blown from the throat of the spring peepers
and rippling across the cat tails and water lilies
come to set your inner desires free
give of yourself freely, or give nothing at all
but the little turtle didn't understand
he had spent his whole life living in a shell
closed off from the world, safe, hidden
layer upon layer, sharp claws and quick eyes
always moving slowly in calculated steps
he had never heard his own heart beat
between calcium ribs and crystal plates
and yet he thought he was happy
until that day he stepped out of his shell
and traced moonbeams and danced with wolves
ah the ecstasy of it all
wordless, worldless
and the dirt smelled of liberation and hope
as miniature claws carved tortoisian heiroglyphics
across the canvas of the forest floor
and when it was all over
the fox pulled the shroud closer
and the turtles eyes
one red, one yellow
shone brighter than a million suns
as the fox smudged the shell one last time
and asked the raven and the hawk
the dragon and the wolf to look out for
the little traveler
knowing that he was called home
and the little boy rocked, all alone
a crystal terrapin in his lap
his head filled with the smell of sage
and the sound of drums...
Dear Diary : catching up Posted by horatio on Friday, January 29, 2010 (23:00:58) (13 reads)
Life really does have a way of slipping ahead of you when you're not watching, and sometimes even when you are, and then reaching back to bite you in the rear. Maybe that's not the best analogy, but that's the gist of how life has felt lately. Always a step behind, trying to stay a step ahead, hoping that when it all evens out and adds up, you'll at least me swimming above water. Who knows, some days it works, others, not so much. It seems like lately it has been more of the not so much, and less of the mostly.
I've been healthy most of my life. I was one of those kids that prided themselves on having a perfect, or damn near perfect, attendance record at school. Not really sure why in hindsight, but at the time it seemed like it was important. Somehow I managed to maintain that throughout most of my life, and really didn't ever have an even somewhat serious illness until early in college, and even that was fairly minor. But since this past summer, it seems I hopped on the roller coaster of autoimmune death at some twisted carnival corpus.
I won't bother with all the nasty details, except to say that it began with a wicked case of shingles (basically adult chicken pocks) that taught me a new lesson in the meaning of pain, and which passed through various stages including plaque dermatitis, infection, inflammation, and hopefully now ending with reactive arthritis--a painful and particularly annoying problem that basically threw off the entire left hemisphere of my body since early December. Needless to say, my autoimmune system has been nearly non-existent, and I've probably spent more time in bed the last month and a half that I have in the last 5 years. Not fun...not that I don't like lounging in bed, but laying in bed and finding every movement painful is not my idea of a good time. And it makes for an even worse vacation.
But one of the upsides of this all is the feeling that I have taken too many things for granted, in this last case my health generally--and mobility specifically, and the value in enjoying them mixed with the danger in taking them for granted. Overall, a powerful reminder to reflect on our own mortality and fragility as a species, but perhaps more importantly, a good chance to think about how to do things differently.
One of my resolutions out of all this is to do more writing, blogging, journaling, etc. and get back into the habit of using my brain and my idea and my...pen?...keyboard...more productively. So with that in mind, look forward to more regular writings here in the months to come.
Dear Diary : clutter Posted by horatio on Sunday, November 22, 2009 (17:53:24) (56 reads)
Clutter in my mental gutter
the backpressure finally builds up
and comes crashing over the vinyl walls
meant to keep everything in working order
but this diluge is too much for restraint
too many summers and too many falls
of leaves and decayed mental matter
has gathered in mt house of usher
and now the maddness is growing
louder than any crow of Poe
or rattling bars of yellow wallpaper cages
Somewhere a man is praying
and Leviathan is laughing
laughing at the absurdness of the world
the depth of the oceans darkness
and the shimmer of decadent moonlight
refracting like diamonds on its oil slicked surface
I discovered recently that the fuzzy floor
which I had for so long now been rubbing my toes on
was actually an accumulation of dirty socks and hairballs
pretending to be a rug for the sack of discordant playfulness
but i can't really feel too upset about it
as I suspect I would have done the same in their place
although I am sure I would have eaten at least a few
of the books left on the floor like snacks for floor snakes
sliding amongst the dark cracks and folded paper gaps
But now that the shine of the waxed wood floor
has been restored in all of its glory
i see the dark shadows creeping back and forth
across the floor of my moonlight room
and i wonder if they were always there
hiding between the books and dirty socks
plotting a silent coup against academic pretensions
and theoretical investigations into the essence of sense
or the sense of the se or the e of y-e-s like si
Dear Diary : reflecting on frustrations Posted by horatio on Wednesday, September 30, 2009 (15:11:11) (81 reads)
It's just been one of those weeks, or at least that's how it feels right now. Talk about ups and downs. I feel like a rag doll in the teeth of some wild little dog trying to rip out all of the stuffing from the ears.
I had a dream about a huge monster bird thing haunting me, walked in the rain, got soaked and thoroughly enjoyed it, got reprimanded by some friends for speaking my mind, am about fed up with campus politics and Tom f-ing Ridge, and if I have to read another pamphlet about destroying time and the university bullshit I am going to puke. I feel like I am trying to be a bridge between impossible contradictions and I'm falling down.
Some days, I wonder why I even care at all. It would be a hell of a lot easier to just forget it all, throw my convictions on the shelf along with all my politics, and just dissolve into Modern Combat III, Cartoon Network, Quiznos subs and washing dishes or selling junk for $6 an hour. But I can't stop caring. I don't have room on my bookshelf for all of my politics, and I got tired of tv a long time ago. But right now I'm tired of people too. Tired of all the assanine bs, the ignorance and the shallowness. The social conservativism of my peers, who actually have nothing to conserve but a rotten status quo that even they don't fully understand and believe in, but since they can't see anything else, all they can do is cling tighter and tighter.
Is this really living, or just the warm up for total and complete alienated death of our being and an authentic life? Right now, I really can't tell...
Dear Diary : Reflections on Life Posted by horatio on Wednesday, August 05, 2009 (17:57:05) (83 reads)
Life sure feels strange sometimes, or at least it does for me, and especially as of late.
Did you ever have the feeling that you were the captain of a vast yet desolate ship, sails at full mast, the sounds of the wind and sea raging all around you, as you plunged headlong into the darkness and fog just beyond your sight?
Or what about walking the narrow edge of a steep mountain precipice, every step a risk, as you half fearfully and half excitedly peer over the careening edge just over your shoulder and wonder how long you would fall for if you were to slip just a bit?
Or perhaps the feeling is so much bore mundane or banal--as Arendt might call it--and that very mendacity is as maddening, if not more, than anything one's mind might conjure in the last fits and throws of, say, the last quaff from a frothy glass of hemlock.
Sometimes life requires a re-evaluation. Sometimes we require a different life than the one we are leading. And sometimes life just crashes and melts like that computer hard drive you loved so much because it had all of your memories saved on it. And no matter how many times you hit reset, no matter how many disk scans you try running, no emergency boot disk will restore the damage. And so we yell and scream, and sometimes we even cry. Maybe it helps, maybe it doesn't. Either way it doesn't really matter, as we still get to the same place at the end of the day.
I guess in a lot of ways, it's like the old parable about traveling the mountain, and every path leading to the top. It's not the destination itself that ultimately matters, but the paths we have to walk to reach it that will ultimately define who and what we are. And in those adventures, the best story is the one we have yet to write for ourselves. So like the intrepid explorers, we too must continue to survey the landscape of our selves and probe the distant mountains of our psyche as we explore the world. And perhaps, like the capitan, we too may meet a Dersu Uzulu along the way, or have the chance for a wild tiger to cross our paths in unexplored territory.
Why is it then that the first steps on a new journey are sometimes the hardest to take?
Dear Diary : Why I Write and The Flesh of Words Posted by horatio on Wednesday, April 15, 2009 (04:19:43) (121 reads)
I'm trying to clean my head out.
Trying to clean my room out.
Trying to clean my computer out.
While cleaning out my wallet I found a small cache of fortunes. I have this bad habit of keeping every fortune from a fortune cookie, just hording them all up for a bad day when I need to cash in on my fortune. So here's what they had to say to me, this little memory time capsul from the not so distant past.
-Adversity is the prosperity of the great.
-Life to you is a dashing and bold adventure.
-Any impatience you show will only create more stress.
-There is in the worst of fortunes the best chance of a happy ending.
-As soon as you feel too to do a thing, do it.
-You will hear pleasant news.
-Friends long absent are coming back to you.
(ironically as I write this the song is singing..."I'm going home...")
-When someone wrongs you [it?] is good virtue to ignore [them?/it]
(this fortune was stuck to another one and dates 9.15.06... )
-From a past misfortune good luck will come toy ou.
-A friendship founded on business is better than a business founded on friendship.
-You are altruistic and will be involved in many humanitarian projects.
-If you wait too long for the perfect moment, the perfect moment will pass you by.
-Doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment.
and finally, last but not least (drum roll please...)
-Unexpected gain and honor will be yours!
Sweet!
And in the process of all of this I ran across two excellent books that I know I should just put back in the dark where I found them, but rather will take a look at them soon. The first one is The Flesh of Words: The Politics of Writing by Jacques Ranciere, and the other on is Why I Write: Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind by George Orwell.
I find this particularly interesting in light of the recent e-mails I was looking at from people in the writing program at the New School comdemning the violent actions of the students and threatening the safety and such of the campus, as well as being against its founding ideas and values. Very interesting to see reactionary writing coming out of the "writing" area of the New School... who knows?
Anyway, onward to more struggle kiddies. And don't forget to thank the tooth fairy for another good nights sleep.
Dear Diary : Help me throw 5 million tomatoes at AIG! Posted by horatio on Friday, March 20, 2009 (20:01:19) (82 reads)
Yeah, I'm not normally a big fan of forwards and whatnot, but this one actually was worth the time. MoveOn, that pseudo-leftist group we all hate to love or love to hate--take your pick--has a campaign about the AIG bullshit that has been happening with our--yes our--tax money thanks to Congress (who elected these idiots?) and President Obama (see, I told you so!). Anyway, the details are irrelevant at this point as so much money has been thrown into this balck hole that the best option sounds like a public takeover of the entire building and, while we're at it, why not the homes of these CEOs too?
So if you feel like throwing some virtual tomatoes at AIG, here's your chance.
The people at AIG who are most responsible for the severity of the financial crisis should be in jail. But instead, they're slated to get $450 million in bonuses. Infuriating, right?
So a MoveOn member created a game to show just how mad Americans are at AIG. It's called The Great AIG Tomato Toss and it's based on the idea that we should stop throwing money at the people who ruined our economy—and start throwing tomatoes.
Dear Diary : The Warriors Posted by horatio on Sunday, September 28, 2008 (07:57:20) (85 reads)
Cyrus: "You're standing right now with nine delegates from 100 gangs. And there's over a hundred more. That's 20,000 hardcore members. Forty-thousand, counting affiliates, and twenty-thousand more, not organized, but ready to fight: 60,000 soldiers! Now, there ain't but 20,000 police in the whole town. Can you dig it?"
Well, tonight was quite a treat. I went with a few friends to see a showing of The Warriors at the Freak Show in Coney Island, where the movie is based around. If you haven't seen this 1979 film, based off of the book by Sol Yurick, you're really missing out. I feel like, having watched it now, how in the hell did I manage to miss it all of these years. I've heard samples from it, seen it referenced in films, but never realized it until watching it tonight. Plus, there's nothing like seeing this film at the Freak Show in Coney Island, where a group of people were dressed as the Orphans, and a few in the Warrior vests even, complete with a Rocky Horror-esque interactive crowd cheeringl jeering and clinking their beers:
(clicking beer bottles) "Waaaarrrrrriiiorsss, come out to pla-ay!"
Dear Diary : Unwriting a Poem Posted by horatio on Tuesday, September 23, 2008 (05:43:16) (80 reads)
Unwriting a Poem
How should I start, by describing this project of undoing
or undoing this project of describing
it may be extremely harmful
the words that i will tear from deep within
those hidden and mist-covered places
where only demons and bad dreams lurk
where the cut of razor wire and the black ooze of blood
are more than simple images on the wall
they are living and breathing monsters
hiding deep within the darkest recesses
just waiting to be let out
like wild beasts locked behind iron cages,
held at bay by feeble paper locks
and empty ink fountain troughs
crying in the corner is my muse
clothes torn, tattered, a sight to be see
yet simultaneously hidden from
visibility and invisibility
the gaze and the watched
turning on the iris, red and swollen
while poems are sacrificed in front of her
burned like so many books
burned like so many dreams
burned like so many people
flames ablaze
searing in the way that only words can hurt
in only the way that looks can kill
leaving nothing but the taste of bitter medicine
and the alchemical smell of sulpher
i turned this poem inside out so that i could see
where the words were pouring out from
where the genealogy of ideas was emanating
where the structure of knowledge was rooted
but all i found were stupid words trying to sound smart
letters pretending at something bigger
teeth bared, snarling
hoping no one will notice the quiver
of fear and murmurs of loss on tense lips
speak not of this, nor of that
only speak when spoken to
and then only tell lies
until the lie becomes the truth
and can speak for itself as self-evident
inspiration is a muse of death
whispering into your ear
as you paint life on the page, the canvas, the screen
reminding you of your mortality
while tempting you with immortality
flowing like the sands of time
fissures – ruptures – disassociation
i try to stitch meaning together into fleshy circles
wound tightly around each preceding ring
like a coil in a magnet, or a snake in its lair
smooth dark loops through the ether
connecting the here with the now to make the
ever proceeding space that will be tomorrow
but even here words fail me
like they fail so many others.
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